Viveka Chudamani Yb

Viveka Chudamani is an 8th Century philosophical treatise by Adi Sankaracharya. It deals with renunciation, and is by and large secular. It has 581 Sanskrit verses which I am trying to translate and also deduce, to the best of my ability. This I am trying as a positive blog, unlike my many other blogs which are sceptical. However, frank and hard criticism is welcome, including anonymous criticism.

About Me

multisubj or yb or ybr or ybrao a donkey. occupation: Retired Bank Officer and LAWYER. Kindly see autobiographicalyb.blogspot.com, if you will like to know more about me as a person.
Main goal: Marxism through non-violent means. Sub-goal: minimising the effects of the opium i.e. the religion on human minds.

Where can I get free full book?

Archive.org has kindly made available for us a scanned copy of the book. click this link:http://archive.org/details/VivekachudamaniPart1Of4WithEnglishMeaningAudio.pdfhttp://archive.org/stream/vivekachudamanio00sankrich/vivekachudamanio00sankrich_djvu.txt:----text file with garbled sanskrit verses

Thursday, January 19, 2012

ENGLISH GISTFive organs of our 'actions' : speech, vision, smell, hearing and touchFive organs of our 'senses' : eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skinFive gases/winds which move within our body: prANam (wind of life, presumably in the lungs), apAnam (gases which move downwards and emerge out of our intestines, bowels and anus), udAnam (gases which move upwards and emerge out of our mouth), samAnam (winds which are evenly spread in our body) and vyAnam (winds which spread and pervade through all our blood vessels, tissues and the body as a whole)Five elements of nature: earth, water, fire, wind and skyFour inner-constituents of ourselves: mind, intellect, ego and inclination (cittam)-- all these are micro-corpus our body.These are also called puryashTakam= eight villages/towns. (puri =village/town/city). ashTakam=eight.

ybREMS:Total of 5 sense organs, 5 action organs, 5 winds, 5 elements, 4 inner residents , come to 24 number. number = sankhya. This verse seems to be based on sAnkhya philosophy of kapila.It is not clear, how the count of eight villages/towns has come. We have to checkup.

Google search indications: PuryashTakam consists of not 24 , but 27. They added three more: ignorance, desire, karma (in the meaning of :remnants of past birth. Karma also means actions and duties. That meaning is apparently not intended).

Modern physiology cannot accept this count in its entirity. The sAnkhya (number) theory has tried to explain the links between the physical body- and the mind- and the external nature (earth-water-wind-fire-sky). But the idea is still vague and ethereal. We need more evidence to accept it as a tangible theorem.

Unable to comprehend these complex theories, probably, illiterate and semi-literate priests encouraged idol worship, because idol worship is LESS ABSTRACT and more CONVENIENT AS A LIVELIHOOD OCCUPATION.